Flight Safety Information - June 28, 2021 No. 128 In This Issue : Incident: Swiss B773 at Zurich on Jun 26th 2021, rejected takeoff twice due to crew rest area smoke warning : Accident: Southwest B737 near Salt Lake City on Jun 25th 2021, turbulence injures four : Accident: Cargo Carriers SH36 at Las Vegas on Jun 25th 2021, belly landing : A man jumped from moving airplane at Los Angeles airport after trying to breach the cockpit : Incident: Spirit A320 near Fort Lauderdale on Jun 20th 2021, vibrations on flight controls : Incident: Copa B738 near Cali on Jun 24th 2021, cargo smoke indication : American Airlines CEO: Passengers Bringing Their Own Alcohol Is a Big Problem : $2.5 million NASA project will develop and test safety management for ‘air taxis’ : Airlines Will Have to Wait Longer on Next Gen Boeing 777 Jet Incident: Swiss B773 at Zurich on Jun 26th 2021, rejected takeoff twice due to crew rest area smoke warning A Swiss International Airlines Boeing 777-300, registration HB-JNB performing flight LX-92 from Zurich (Switzerland) to Sao Paulo Guarulhos,SP (Brazil), was accelerating for takeoff from Zurich's runway 32 when the crew rejected takeoff at low speed (about 60 knots over ground) due to a crew rest area smoke indication. Emergency services responded, no trace of fire, heat or smoke was detected. The aircraft returned to the threshold runway 32 about 25 minutes later and attempted another takeoff but again needed to reject takeoff at low speed (50 knots over ground) due to a crew rest area smoke indication. The aircraft returned to the apron. The flight was cancelled. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e976d37&opt=0 Accident: Southwest B737 near Salt Lake City on Jun 25th 2021, turbulence injures four A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700, registration N454WN performing flight WN-1753 from Chicago Midway,IL to Salt Lake City,UT (USA), was in the initial descent towards Salt Lake City about 65nm north of Salt Lake City when the aircraft encountered turbulence causing injuries to three flight attendants and a passenger. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Salt Lake City's runway 34L about 17 minutes later. The airline confirmed three flight attendants and a passenger received minor injuries when the aircraft encountered moderate turbulence with the fasten seat belt signs illuminated at that time. The four injured were taken to a hospital. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e97434c&opt=0 Accident: Cargo Carriers SH36 at Las Vegas on Jun 25th 2021, belly landing An Air Cargo Carriers Shorts 360 on behalf of Fedex Federal Express, registration N970AA performing positioning flight SNC-700 from Las Vegas North,NV to Las Vegas,NV (USA) with 2 crew, landed on Las Vegas McCarren Airport's runway 08R when tower instructed the aircraft to taxi all the way down and hold short 08 runway 08L to taxi to the cargo apron, the crew responded they'd remain on the runway, another voice chimed in asking "is your gear up?" The aircraft became stuck on its belly on the runway, emergency services responded at that point, and the aircraft was later lifted off the runway by a crane. The aircraft had actually performed a full stop landing at North Las Vegas, departed again for a visual return to Las Vegas International Airport and suffered the gear problem at landing at McCarren. The airport reported the aircraft made a hard landing after the landing gear did not deploy. The FAA is looking into the occurrence. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e973379&opt=0 A man jumped from moving airplane at Los Angeles airport after trying to breach the cockpit A passenger leaped from a moving plane at a Los Angeles airport, Associated Press reported. The passenger tried to break into the airplane's cockpit before exiting onto the tarmac. Authorities took the passenger into custody, and he was hospitalized. A passenger was hospitalized after jumping out of a moving airplane at the Los Angeles International Airport. United Express flight 5365, operated by SkyWest Airlines, pulled away from the gates around 7 pm on Friday when a man unsuccessfully tried to break into the cockpit, Associated Press reported. The man tried to breach the cockpit by pounding on the doors, then managed to open the airplane's service door and leaped down the emergency slide onto the tarmac, AP reported. He was taken into custody by authorities on the taxiway before being treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later hospitalized. It's unclear what prompted the man's actions, but the FAA told CNN that an altercation occurred on board the Embraer 175 regional jet just before the man tried to escape. The Utah-bound airplane returned to its gate after the incident. No other passengers were injured. The FBI is investigating the matter, a spokesperson told AP. The incident is the second disruption at Los Angeles International Airport in two days. On Thursday, a police chase sparked after a driver ran through a chain-link fence at a FedEx cargo facility and drove onto the airfield, AP reported. https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-jumped-moving-airplane-los-140953286.html Incident: Spirit A320 near Fort Lauderdale on Jun 20th 2021, vibrations on flight controls A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320-200, registration N646NK performing flight NK-237 from Fort Lauderdale,FL (USA) to Medellin (Colombia), was enroute at FL350 about 160nm south of Fort Lauderdale when the crew decided to return to Fort Lauderdale requesting an early descent (which required the controller to coordinate with Havana Center, Cuba). On approach to Fort Lauderdale the crew indicated they were an emergency with vibrations on the flight control systems, they did not want to penetrate any bad weather and wanted to deviate around weather. The crew indicated they were landing overweight and therefore requested emergency services on stand by, they expected to be able to vacate the runway after checks by emergency services. The aircraft landed safely on Fort Lauderdale's runway 10L about 50 minutes after leaving FL350. The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 43 hours after landing back. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e981b84&opt=0 Incident: Copa B738 near Cali on Jun 24th 2021, cargo smoke indication A Copa Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration HP-1723CMP performing flight CM-152 from Panama City (Panama) to Quito (Ecuador), was enroute at FL350 about 160nm westnorthwest of Cali (Colombia) when the crew received a smoke indication for the aft cargo hold and decided to divert to Cali. The aircraft landed safely on Cali's runway 02 about 30 minutes later. A replacement Boeing 737-800 registration HP-1844CMP reached Quito with a delay of about 5 hours. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Cali for 11 hours, then resumed service. Colombia's AeroCivil reported Cali Airport was closed for about 40 minutes as result of the emergency. Colombia's GRIAA is looking into the occurrence. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e965115&opt=0 American Airlines CEO: Passengers Bringing Their Own Alcohol Is a Big Problem American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told employees he understands their frustrations over the growing trend of passengers slipping their own alcohol on a plane or coming aboard already drunk. But Parker admitted that American’s policy of not selling alcohol on board to coach passengers has contributed to the problem. Speaking at an American Airlines employee question and answer session earlier this month, a recording of which was reviewed by the aviation blog View From The Wing, Parker was asked by a flight attendant about passengers bringing alcohol onboard themselves. Between the booze and the face mask policy, it has contributed to an all-time high in physical altercations on flights and a record number of complaints to the Federal Aviation Administration – prompting `. Parker admitted American has “more customers bringing on alcohol than they should have,” adding that “Intoxicated passengers … nothing has changed. They’re not allowed on the airplane, they’re a safety risk. No one should be on the airplane that’s intoxicated.” Parker said that bringing your own alcohol on board is not an American Airlines ban, but a federal regulation. He told crew members that policy should be to confiscate the alcohol if they see it – easier said than done, of course. Brady Byrnes, American’s executive in charge of inflight services, agreed that it’s a growing problem but also said he’s baffled by it because there’s a limit on how much liquid you can bring through security. Unless, Byrne said, passengers are consuming mass quantities at restaurants and bars on the other side of security or, worse, getting to-go cups filled with an alcoholic beverage. https://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/american-airlines-ceo-passengers-bringing-their-own-alcohol-is-a-big-problem.html $2.5 million NASA project will develop and test safety management for ‘air taxis’ Vanderbilt engineers are part of a NASA-funded, multi-institution effort to develop safety systems for a mode of transportation that doesn’t exist yet—small, commercial, autonomous planes that move people by air between locations in large, crowded cities. The task is a formidable one with machine learning at its core. Autonomous, or self-piloted, airplanes must communicate with each other. They must respond to hazards, from weather to equipment malfunction to “uncooperative” other aircraft to prevent collisions and crashes. And all this must unfold in real time, in defined corridors separate from existing air traffic routes but without continuous air control support on the ground. Commercial, pilotless “air taxis” are perhaps a decade away, maybe less. With this and similar projects, NASA, with the Federal Aviation Administration, wants to stay ahead of that curve and have air traffic management systems (called UTMs) in place when commuters take to the skies. To that end, the $2.5 million, three-year project, will develop and test the foundations of safety management for advanced urban air mobility. It is hoped these eVTOLs, or electric takeoff and landing aircraft, will reduce fossil fuel consumption and traffic congestion. “This is a very exciting task,” said Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering Gautam Biswas, who heads the Vanderbilt effort. “A machine learning algorithm is not like a person–it can only do what it has been trained for. It can analyze a situation better than a human, but it doesn’t have the intuition to deal with unusual situations.” The team includes more than a dozen researchers from George Washington University, which is project lead, the University of Texas-Austin and MIT’s Lincoln Lab, as well as Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt team also includes Marcos Quinones-Grueiro, research scientist at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems. The government partner is NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. These vehicles resemble a cross between a helicopter and a small airplane. They don’t need long runways of passenger jets or even smaller planes, but their lighter, pilotless profile makes them more susceptible to certain types of risk. The project tackles three types of hazards: adverse convective weather, winds and fog; corridor incursion by non-cooperative aircraft; and vehicle and component level degradation and faults. Vanderbilt engineers are focusing on the latter. The Vanderbilt researchers are expert in tracking performance of components and monitoring degradation, and a key innovation they bring to this work is the idea of using reinforcement learning algorithms for online fault tolerant control. “What happens with a fault occurs? How can aircraft keep flying by adjusting its controller? Should it continue or alter its route, or is the situation so bad the vehicle must find a place to land immediately?” Biswas said. “All of this decision-making has to happen on board,” he said. The approach, which also supports condition-based maintenance for safe flying, will require a cloud infrastructure as well as to support prognostics, risk evaluation and hazard response functions. Automated aircraft control is not new; autonomous systems handle more and more functions in commercial and military flights each year with software trained by system models. The difference with the eVTOL safety management project is that it will be data-driven. NASA has been testing such aircraft at its research center in Hampton, Virginia. Combined with its Advanced Air Mobility Campaign, the agency is exploring how different aircraft technologies and configurations will perform in an urban environment, and researchers will use this data. With the information trove, the team will tackle not only what and how a “machine” learns, but also how to make the leap into “learning as you go” using reinforcement learning. “All of this will be done in a data-driven manner,” Biswas said. “That is the interesting thing and the challenge–how rich is your data? If you don’t consider the limitations of your data, you will fail.” In a related effort, he and the larger team are advising NASA on extending and operationalizing a Concept of Operations, or ConOps, for advanced air mobility. Included will be separate local and regional corridors for autonomous flights, takeoff and landing requirements on the ground, and designated areas for passenger transfer. https://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/news/2021/2-5-million-nasa-project-will-develop-and-test-safety-management-for-air-taxis/ Airlines Will Have to Wait Longer on Next Gen Boeing 777 Jet Although Boeing executives will be disappointed that the model won’t fly for at least another two years, the delay provides the company more time to make safety improvements. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told Boeing Co that its planned 777X is not yet ready for a significant certification step and warned it “realistically” will not certify the airplane until mid- to late 2023. The FAA in a May 13 letter to Boeing seen by Reuters cited a number of issues in rejecting a request by the manufacturer to issue a Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) Readiness. “The aircraft is not yet ready for TIA,” the FAA wrote, declining to approve “a phased TIA of limited scope with a small number of certification flight test plans.” The letter, which had not previously been made public, cites numerous concerns about lack of data and the lack of a preliminary safety assessment for the FAA to review. “The FAA will not approve any aircraft unless it meets our safety and certification standards,” the agency said in a statement Sunday. Boeing has been developing the widebody jet, a new version of its popular 777 aircraft, since 2013 and at one expected to release it for airline use in 2020. A Boeing spokeswoman said on Sunday that the company “remains fully focused on safety as our highest priority throughout 777X development. As we subject the airplane to a comprehensive test program to demonstrate its safety and reliability, we are working through a rigorous development process to ensure we meet all applicable requirements.” The 777X will be the first major jet to be certified since software flaws in two Boeing 737 MAX planes caused fatal crashes and prompted accusations of cozy relations between the company and FAA. European regulators have said in particular that they will subject the 777X to extra scrutiny after the fatal crashes prompted the 20-month grounding of the 737 MAX. The MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people within five months in 2018 and 2019. The letter cites a number of issues that still need to be addressed, including an “upcoming major software update with the software load of flight control… The FAA understands that there are many significant problem report items that will be addressed by that version of the software load, including the software fix for the un-commanded pitch event that occurred on December 8, 2020.” The agency added that “software load dates are continuously sliding and the FAA needs better visibility into the causes of the delays.” It said that “after the un-commanded pitch event, the FAA is yet to see how Boeing fully implements all the corrective actions identified by the root cause investigation.” The agency said it wants Boeing to “implement a robust process so similar escape will not happen in the future and this is not a systemic issue.” The FAA said in its letter certification date for the 777X “is realistically going to be mid to late 2023 (>2 years from now.” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun said earlier this month that “we are still confident” it will be certified in the fourth quarter of 2023. https://skift.com/2021/06/27/airlines-will-have-to-wait-longer-on-next-gen-boeing-777-jet/ Curt Lewis